Faculty/Guest Artist Recital: Ars Nostra - Dulcis Domus

Submitted by CoTAMarketing on September 28, 2012

"As a part of our new theme ""Ars Nostra,"" pianists Sang-Hie Lee and Youmee Kim collaborate in a concert of works by JB Floyd, Gerald Chenoweth, EunHye Park, Robert Paterson, and Chan Hae Lee. Three Tributes for Two Pianos (1991) by JB Floyd explore 20st-century harmonic sonority and unconventional contrapuntal lines. A commissioned piece Celestial Phenomena (2008) by Gerald Chenoweth has three descriptive movements, ""Big Bang,"" ""Starshine,"" and ""Night Sky - Dawn"" each evoking an image of heavenly phenomenon. Deep Blue Ocean (2010) by Robert Paterson depicts a personal encounter of the water with the depth and fluidity as the composer learned to scuba dive in the Gulf of Mexico and at the same time as he was becoming a new father. Frozen Land (2010) by Chan Hae Lee was commissioned by Sang-Hie Lee to envision the past war time and a future hope of reunification of the ""two Koreas."" EunHye Park’s innovative work will bring together the Piano Duo, Percussion Ensemble, and Dance.

""Ars Nostra"" is a concept rather than a group. It is intended to promote ""our arts"" by performing musical works composed by our colleagues and contemporaries. The composers of our time have extra-ordinarily diverse and rich sources to draw upon from the ancient-anthropological resources, multiple ethnicities, the established Western arts traditions, jazz, rock and pop, electronic capabilities, and other creative fusions. Our contemporary composers also bring their life-experiences as well as historical sensitivity that are lived in the turbulent 20th- and 21st-century world into their work. For the composer, the genre of two pianos gives an expansive opportunity to work with this magnificent orchestral instrument; for the performer, the ensemble experience is like non other as the identical sonority must work in complimentary fashion rather than mere duplication.